Stay

We removed two ticks from Hadley Sunday morning.  But that’s not what this post was supposed to be about.  It was supposed to be about an egg hunt we went to at the girls’ school.

I was going to start by telling you I didn’t want to go to it.  It was Saturday, Jesse had been out of town for most of the week and I was exhausted. But the girls were looking forward to the egg hunt and seeing their friends, so we went.

I was going to describe the fun we had at school, and how the morning started out dreary and rainy but as the kids ran around the playground and under the weeping willow tree, the sun came out.  I was going to write how nice it was to watch Hadley run around with her girlfriends, giggling and cheering at the treasures they’d found.

The conclusion of the post was going to be about how I too have come to laugh and feel as though I have begun to fit into this world of mothering and preschool and egg hunts. It was going to have something to do with Lauren Winner’s book Still. In it, she shares her walk through a mid-faith crisis, and something that I loved about her story is that despite her not seeing, or feeling God’s presence, she kept going to church. I laughed and talked with other moms on Saturday, thankful that I decided to show up that morning even if I didn’t want to.  And as I helped the girls with their bag of eggs I thought that it is good to keep coming back. Even if you don’t fit in. Even when you’ve made so many mistakes. Even when you think you’ll never get it right. “I doubt; I am uncertain; I am restless, prone to wander. And yet glimmers of holy keep interrupting my gaze.” Sure, Winner isn’t talking about motherhood, she is talking about faith.  But I relate to the restlessness, to the uncertainty, and I am always shocked by the interrupting glimmers. The post would end. I would hit “Publish” and be on my way.

But on Sunday morning after Hadley’s bath we removed two ticks and suddenly my story didn’t make sense.  We don’t know what’s going to happen now that Hadley has been bitten.  We have to watch for signs, make sure there’s no bulls-eye, keep an eye out for working limbs, make sure she doesn’t have a fever. I can’t write about our time on Saturday morning because the story’s not over.  I’m still very much struggling with it.

I didn’t want to go to church on Palm Sunday, the day we found the ticks. I wanted to sit and monitor Hadley, make sure she would be OK. If necessary, I would take her to a nearby clinic. Going to church seemed ridiculous next to making sure my child didn’t have Lyme Disease.

But we went and I sang hymns and read scripture with the rest of the congregation. I sat and stood, tried to pray, tried to focus, but eventually I started looking around.  A few rows ahead of me was a couple whose daughter had a bad fall when she wasn’t even a year old.  She shared the terrifying story of the ordeal a few years ago and thinking about it as I sat in church, I thought, Well, they understand what it’s like to be scared. Behind me, I could hear little squeaks of a newborn and I wondered how the parents of the baby were doing.  Were they getting sleep?  Did they struggle with making sure they paid enough attention to their first as they learned about their second? Are they unsure like I was? I wondered. After church, as we made our way outside, a little girl who was playing with a group of kids fell down on the cement.  She cried in pain, and I walked towards her to see if I could help.  An older boy beat me to it and picked her up.  I grabbed her shoe from the ground and he took it from me.

“Do you know her parents?” I asked and he told me he did but I pointed out where they were just in case.  He nodded and walked her into church and I suppose the glimmer that interrupted my fear and worry about Hadley was knowing that we are all struggling with stories – whether we are in church or not.

Lauren Winner tells a story about a girl who was about to be confirmed but tells her father she doesn’t think she can do it because she wasn’t sure she believed everything she was supposed to believe.  Her father says, “What you promise when you are confirmed is not that you will believe this forever. What you promise when you are confirmed is that that is the story you will wrestle with forever.”

One of the signs of a good story is whether or not I wrestle with it.  So I’ll stick with the stories I’ve been given.  I’ll stay and wait for the interrupting glimmer just as I wait to see how Hadley’s doing in the next few weeks. Just as I stayed with all the other stories I struggled with.

Sunday afternoon Hadley decided to copy “Hark the Herald Angels Sing” onto paper.

Apparently the sans serif font was too much to recreate so she decided to type the rest on the computer instead.  I’m not sure what prompted her to re-write this hymn. Last week she was re-writing The Pitiful Pirates.  But as she writes she struggles. Sometimes she misses a word, sometimes she doesn’t understand one. Other times, if she’s typing, she doesn’t understand why some letters have to be capitalized and others don’t. Every once in awhile she’ll talk to me about the story: What does hark mean? Do angels fly? Are they alive? What does reconcile mean? But for the most part her reading and writing are physical acts.

That’s fine with me. She doesn’t have to get it all right now.  There will be time to go back to these stories, and hopefully she will. There will be time to struggle with them, to work them out, to find the glimmer.

Or better yet, let the glimmer find her.